Housing prices in the Greater Toronto Area rose 31.7 per cent in April from a year ago, but local realtors say a surge of new listings are on the way that might meet demand.

The Toronto Real Estate Board also lashed out new provincial rules to create affordability in the market, including a 15 per cent tax on non-residents, and said its own new data concludes the share of foreign ownership is still low.

March average sale prices for all housing were $916,567, up 33.2 per cent from a year ago.

The new data includes 10 days of reaction to new 16 new provincial actions to cool the market, including a 15 per cent tax on non-resident or foreign buyers and tougher new rent control rules.

“The fact that we experienced extremely strong growth in new listings in April means that buyers benefitted from considerably more choice in the marketplace. It is too early to tell whether the increase in new listings was simply due to households reacting to the strong double-digit price growth reported over the past year or if some of the increase was also a reaction to the Ontario Government’s recently announced Fair Housing Plan,” said Larry Cerqua, president of the board, in a statement.

TREB said there were 33.6 per cent more new listings than there were a year ago. New listings were up by double-digits for all low-rise home types, including detached and semi-detached houses and townhouses but condominium apartments were at the same level as last year.

The board also released new data looking at property assessment land registry information to analyze foreign and speculative ownership in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, the area that surrounds and includes Toronto and is home to nine million people. The GGH is subject to the 15 per cent tax.

TREB looked at annual property sales and aggregated residential data provided by the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation and Teranet Inc. for the Greater Golden Horseshoe between 2008 and April 2017.

It found the number of buyers with a mailing address outside of Canada is what it describes as “well-below one per cent” regardless of the year and most of those buyers had American addresses.

Between 2008 and April 2017, TREB says the average share of foreign buyers in the GGH was 2.3 per cent. The share was 2.2 per cent in 2016 and 2.6 per cent for the January through April period in 2017.

The group also says that 87 per cent to 90 per cent or more of buyers purchased their homes as a place to live. For 2016, that figure was 91.5 per cent, but dropped down to 88 per cent from January-April, 2017.

TREB noted that a survey of its brokers produced by Ipsos and released earlier this year estimated 4.9 per cent of transactions between the fall of 2015 and the fall of 2016 were made up of foreign buyers.

On the speculation front, the board looked at purchases between 2008 and April 2017 to analyze the number of homes bought and sold within one year of the original transaction by domestic or foreign buyers. The share was less than five per cent in 2016 and about seven per cent between January-April 2017.

The analysis also looked at the ratio of property owners that owned more than one property in the GGH to the total number of properties. As of April 2017, that ratio was 6.2 per cent of total properties.

“It is not yet clear what impact the measures contained within the Ontario Government’s Fair Housing Plan have had on TREB’s market area or the broader Greater Golden Horseshoe.” said John DiMichele, chief executive of TREB. “Despite the recent uptick in new listings on TREB’s MLS System, we believe that we all have to be committed to a better understanding of issues affecting demand and supply dynamics in our marketplace.”

Total sales for April did drop 3.2 per cent from a year ago to 11,630 but the board pointed out that Easter fell in April in 2017 compared to March in 2016 which results in fewer working days.

“It was encouraging to see a very strong year-over-year increase in new listings. If new listings growth continues to outpace sales growth moving forward, we will start to see more balanced market conditions. It will likely take a number of months to unwind the substantial pent-up demand that has built over the past two years. Expect annual rates of price growth to remain well-above the rate of inflation as we move through the spring and summer months,” said Jason Mercer, director of market analysis for TREB.